The God-Awful Adventures of Courier Butch
by SouldierToTheEnd
Summary: After the (supposed) death of the Lone Wanderer, Butch decides to explore the continental U.S. and ends up in the Mojave Wasteland. After being robbed and shot in the head, Butch loses his memories of the Capital and decides to pay hell to an asshat in a Daisy suit. Written for Fallout Kink Meme.
1. In Which A Legend Is Born

A/N: So this was written for the Fallout Kink Meme, in that what if Butch was the Courier. And so a plot bunny was born.

Sucky title sucks, so I probably will change it.

I do not own Fallout.

* * *

Butch always knew there was more than the little hole in the ground that was his childhood. And when he surfaced for the first time to see the ruins and sky, he knew there was more than the Capital Wasteland. He never acted on these impulses; he was with Nosebleed. That was enough for him then.

Then—

Then Project Purity happened. And Nosebleed couldn't resist being a goody-two-shoes.

Then his childhood friend (friend? yes, friend) was immobile on a cot, with short, painful breaths that made Butch wince from the sound. It was like a rattle, a bell. Butch didn't like the sound of it.

Those stupid fucking Brotherhood assholes. They just looked at Nosebleed and shook their heads. They told Butch, "It looks like he's going to join his father soon."

So he left.

No, it wasn't because he was afraid of hearing Nosebleed's breathing stop completely. It wasn't because he was afraid of having to bury his only friend in life in an unmarked hole. He needed something more than the Capital. He needed a new start. So he looked at his Pipboy, and began to head west. And he didn't stop. Not for four years.

Okay, that was a lie. He did stop. A lot. He went into bars. He met a lot of nice women with even nicer tits. He did a few errands here and there, mostly just delivering things, because he wasn't a fucking goody-two-shoes who'd save an entire town of children, or find a new home for a lil' brat, or save some poor bastard from Super Mutants, or—

You know what? It doesn't fucking matter anymore.

He crossed a couple mountain ranges with caravans. He skirted the edges of Arizona, just enough to see a bunch of jackasses in skirts with strange headgear. He got lost in the numerous forests of Utah, but never quite making it to Zion, though he heard it was real pretty. He even found himself in a border town in Mexico, where the women had even better tits, and where nobody minded him as much as long as he kept his sticky fingers to himself (which was never).

Eventually he decided he might as well go up to Vegas and see what all the fuss about. Maybe the people there had better hair. Because as nice as Mexico was, the locals' hair was un-salvageable.

He made a pit stop at some place called the Divide. He got a lot of caps from that job.

A little town called Primm was on the way, with a guy there that was a part of the Mojave Express, who gave him a pretty sweet assignment. The package was the smallest he had ever encountered, and the reward surprisingly high. 1200 caps. And the drop-off was none other than Vegas. Seemed like the easiest job he's had in a while. He smirked at the old man, twirled his switchblade in what he hoped looked totally badass, and bid farewell. He was going to Vegas, fuckers!

XxxX

It was embarrassing how easily they caught him.

XxxX

He woke up a week later in some Doc's makeshift clinic, with a five-inch scar on his cranium and an old guy telling him how lucky he was to be alive. And that pissed him off. He would've been gone within the hour if he hadn't run into some jackass named Joe Cobb. He stayed a few more nights and ended up being called the "Hero of Goodsprings." Which also pissed him off but he wasn't too sure why. In fact, he wasn't too sure where he was from and how he ended up in the Mojave Wasteland. But, details, details, it was time to go kill an asshat in a Daisy suit.


	2. In Which 1st Recon Is Encountered

"What kind of town is known by a fucking dinosaur?" Butch grumbled.

For his part, ED-E ignored him, instead too focused on recording a couple of Legionnaire spies in the distance. It'll come in handy, some day.

"I mean, it's a bigger shithole than the last one! Hey, ED-E, are you listening to me?" The eyebot focused his camera on the sight of the Courier flashing him the bird. He beeped in annoyance before shooting a laser at Butch's feet; Butch stumbled back. "All right, all right, 'm going, okay?" He muttered under his breath about "stupid floating robot-thingies."

Novac was good for one thing, as Butch realized when he found himself in the mouth of the dinosaur, looking at a badass mofo wearing a 1st Recon beret and balancing a sniper rifle on his knee. Of course Butch would never admit to that. So he instead puffed out his chest, popped the collar of his Tunnel Snakes jacket (of which he still didn't know what it was exactly, but it sounded cool), and gave him an easy smirk.

"Get out," said the sniper.

Butch made an elaborate show of taking out a cigarette, lighting it, and taking a drag, blowing the smoke into the guy's face. "And if I don't?"

Butch spent the rest of the night in a motel room, nursing a broken nose and a bruised ego.

But Butch was nothing if not stupidly persistent.

The next day he found Manny Vargas taking his shift. Bringing two Nuka-Colas, Butch managed to smooth talk him enough to decide to swing by Boulder City, and to figure out who exactly this Boone guy was. Satisfied, he fucked around for the rest of the day until night fell and he jumped to action.

Nuka-Colas didn't work the second time. Boone stared at the proffered hand with the soft drink. "C'mon, you've been workin' hard," Butch said, a bit nervously. He did just managed to stop the nose from bleeding. "Fine. Smoke?"

"I don't smoke."

"Everyone smokes."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Um…" Butch wasn't an expert at apologizing.

"You know what? Want to make it up to me? I have something in mind."

"Hey, man, I ain't apologizing to no one!" Butch promptly shut up at the murderous glare. "…ah, just kidding! What do ya need?"

Boone leaned back, resting his rifle across his lap, sizing up the Courier. After a long pregnant silence, he said, "My wife was kidnapped by Legionnaires."

"Oh." Well, that explains a lot. "O…kay? You want me to rescue her?"

"No. My wife's dead. I want the bastard who sold her."

"Sold her?"

Boone sighed. "Do I have to spell things out for you? Legion came in the middle of the night. They took her—only her, no one else. That means it was business. That means someone in this town sold her as a slave to those bastards."

"Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh.'"

"So, how do I find this guy?"

"Legion's always writing these kinds of business transactions down. Find the bill of sale. Once you figured out who this person is, take them to the front of the dinosaur during my shift. And wear this," Boone tossed the beret at him, "that way I'll know it's them."

Butch narrowed his eyes at the beret. As cool as it was, it would mess up his 'do. "Why me?"

"Because you're a stranger. Now go."

Well, at least the guy didn't fuck up his face again.

XxxX

Finding out the culprit was stupidly easy. It also made Butch want to kill the woman himself, especially when he read that the old lady got even more payment for the 'unborn child.'

Jeannie May smiled at him from behind old lady glasses, real nice. She did not question the sudden stroll in the night. Butch had to stop himself from punching that smile off that bitch's face.

In front of the dinosaur, under the stars, Butch was still trying to adjust the beret on his head when a shot rang out and Jeannie May's head exploded into red mist. He grimaced when some flecks of blood hit his jacket. It was hard staying classy when you had to murder some jackasses.

Back in the dinosaur, Butch gave up trying to wear the thing and tossed the beret back at Boone. The sniper scowled when Butch began to comb that serpentine curl just right. "How did you know?" he asked when Butch finally stopped fidgeting.

He handed him that small, innocuous piece of paper. Boone's eyes skimmed it hurriedly, amazingly scowling even more.

"You all right?" Butch asked. Because while he was an asshole, he didn't want to be an asshole while Boone learned that he had an unborn child.

Boone crumbled the bill and stuffed it into his pants' pocket. "I need to leave. Now."

Without thinking, Butch blurted, "Come with me."

"Why?"

"Uh—"

"Why would I join you, a punk with a stupid mouth and even stupider ideas, who hangs around with a creepy robot of all things?" ED-E beeped indignantly. "All you'll do is get me killed."

"I can give you free haircuts!"

"I'm bald."

Butch hissed in frustration. "Okay, fine! Don't come with me! But just so you know, I got shot in the head, _survived_, forgot who I am except for my name and that I really like barbering the _shit_ outta hair, and that I need to go kill the asshole who tried to kill me; and I need to get back this _bullshit_ package that I lost weeks ago and get it to Vegas. _So you can just blow me_!"

Amazingly he wasn't dead. In fact, Boone was completely quiet, regarding him from behind sunglasses (this mofo wears sunglasses at night, how cool was that?). "So, you're a mailman."

Butch sighed. "Courier. I'm a courier."

"You're going to get yourself killed."

"Yeah, well, I already beat death once. And I have nothing else to do so, ya know."

"You're going to get yourself killed. Like I said, I'm going to probably die if I go with you." Boone shrugged and sighed with resignation. "All right. Let's get out of this shithole."

Butch felt moderately better with traversing the Mojave with 1st Recon by his side.


	3. In Which A Doc Gets Smitten

Freeside pissed him off. And it wasn't just the fact there were a bunch of Tunnel Snakes poseurs (of which he still didn't what it was exactly). It was because he was so close to Vegas, so close that he could see the bright lights and the loosened inhibitions, but couldn't reach it. He loudly cursed Boone.

"I told you to not waste all our caps," was all Boone said.

"But that caravan guy had a pristine copy of _¡La Fantoma!_, issue four!"

In fact Butch was so pissed off that he went to the Atomic Wrangler and bought some middle-aged hussy, effectively wasting even more caps. Boone had given up on dissuading him.

He woke up the next morning sticky and slightly hungover, but overall pleased with the outcome. For breakfast he treated himself to scotch and Salisbury Steak. "We need caps, fast," Butch told Boone and ED-E as they strolled down to the main street. A thug burst out from behind a dumpster, waving a combat knife in their direction. A second later his head exploded. (Butch still couldn't figure out how these people think they'll fare against a Tunnel Snake, a sniper dude, and a robot. C'mon, seriously.) As usual, nothing was on the thug except for his clothes, which were complete shit.

Butch sighed. "All right, let's go find us some fiends. Hell we can make a profit off their armor."

XxxX

They found fiends all right. They made it back to Freeside around midnight with thirty pounds of raider armor and Boone carrying the unconscious punk on his back, on the way to the Old Mormon Fort. Well… it could be worse.

XxxX

Butch woke up to a pair of tits in his face. Clothed tits, sure, but tits nonetheless. He grinned at the sight, before the woman above him realized he was awake and leaned back, finished adjusting his cot. "Butch DeLoria, am I right?"

"Hey, baby." He winked at her. Sure her hair could do with some barbering, but he couldn't stop himself from appreciating a pretty lady.

Julie Farkas blinked. "Your friend brought you in here. Said you guys were fighting fiends."

"Hell yeah. I'm hardcore, baby, y'know it."

"He said you fainted and he had to finish them all on his own."

"What? Butch-man doesn't faint, all right, that bastard's lying his ass off!"

Julie eyed him warily. "Right. Anyway, you're going to have to spend the night here. For observation. We're still not too sure why you fainted."

"You can observe me all night, babe." He folded his hands behind his head, giving her the most smoldering gaze he could muster, wincing internally as he stretched his bruised ribs.

"Yeah, I have to see some other patients." And she was gone just like that. It was cool though. She'll come back. They all come back.

Some fifteen minutes later Boone entered the tent with ED-E hovering above him. He snorted when he saw the Courier lounging in a "seductive" manner. Seeing it was only the sniper, Butch quickly sat up. "Thought you were someone else," he grumbled.

"You collapsed out of nowhere."

"I heard. Such bullshit. Butch-man doesn't faint."

"Shut it already. Julie already told you you're spending the night?"

"Oh, so that's her name."

ED-E beeped in annoyance.

"Look, just shut it and follow the doctors' instructions. Then we can go to Mick and Ralph's in the morning, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Comprendo."

Butch lulled himself back to sleep by humming a vault anthem. Which was strange because he had never been in a vault.

XxxX

Julie Farkas was still perplexed, so she told him he had to stay for the rest of the day before quickly dodging out of the tent, under the guise of attending to "more gravely ill patients." Boone decided to go to Mick and Ralph's with ED-E tagging along, but not before telling Butch sternly to behave. Like he was his father or some shit, even though Boone was only three years older than him. Whatever.

Ignoring his bruised ribs and other contusions, he explored. Junkies paid him no attention and the other doctors didn't seem to mind, until they saw him eyeing some RadAways ("Touch them and you're dead"). So touchy.

He found a ghoul cowgirl by the name of Beatrix who surprisingly didn't get pissed off just by the sight of him. She even found him charming, much to his amazement (not to say that Butch wasn't charming, he was, incredibly, but everybody was always so goddamn uptight). They sat there gossiping like a couple of 13-year-old girls before Butch noticed a blond Follower staring at him. When Butch turned fully in his chair to see the doc, the guy blushed before pretending to be engrossed in his clipboard.

"Oh, so now you've noticed him?" Beatrix chuckled.

"Huh?"

"Pretty boy doctor there has been watching you for a while now."

"Really?" Butch wasn't too sure how to process this info. But he did feel a bit pleased with it.

"Yep. He's trying to be secretive about it. Not really working out for him."

"See? Told ya I have charm."

Beatrix just laughed. "Go talk to him then. I've been here ever since I arrived at Freeside, and the guy avoids people like crazy. First time I've seen him so interested in someone."

"Okay, okay, hold on." Butch pulled out his trusty comb and swiped over the 'do quickly, storing away a few stray locks. "How do I look?"

"Gorgeous, honey. Now go before he retreats into a hole in the wall."

He popped his collar, muttered "Tunnel Snakes rule!" under his breath a couple times for good measure, before striding over to the asocial doctor. As he approached (and as the doctor desperately tried to focus his attention to the clipboard), he saw that the ghoul wasn't kidding, the nerd was hot. Usually he wasn't a big fan of doctors, for reasons he wasn't too sure, but this doctor will sure as hell get rid of that aversion for him. He saw the doctor's Adam's apple move as he swallowed uncomfortably, his blues widening at him. Now Butch knew he was good-looking, but good-looking enough to attract a man? As if his ego needed any more boosts.

Butch stopped in front of him, tilting his head. The doctor pretended to scribble something on the clipboard before finally giving up. "Um, can I-can I help you?"

"Name's DeLoria. Butch DeLoria." A carefully timed wink; the guy's blush deepened.

"You?"

"Ar-arcade Gannon."

"Arcade, listen, I was just having this wonderful conversation with the beautiful Miss Beatrix Russell, when she told me someone over here was staring at me. So I thought, 'hey, if this guy is so interested, I'd better make myself available to whatever he needs.'" Butch rarely talked so formally, but he bet that the nerd found it sexy.

Arcade laughed nervously. "Is that so? Well, I haven't seen anyone like that around here, but if I come across him, I will tell him that you're looking for him."

Butch stepped forward, leaning in. "Relax, Arcade. I'll show you a real nice time."

And he would've showed him a real nice time, he really would've. If not for his eyeballs rolling back in their sockets, and him falling into the guy. Arcade squeaked and shook him, calling for him, but the Courier didn't move. He was out.

XxxX

The next time he woke up he found a sweet ass in his face. Again, clothed, but hell, this woman's got a rocking bod. "Julie," he asked, somewhat weakly.

The doctor straightened up. "Sorry. I dropped my pen." He groaned and tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down. "None of that. You fainted again."

"Bullshit."

"Julie, is he awake?" Arcade's head poked into the tent curiously. Seeing the Courier awake, he stepped fully in, giving him a small smile. "Hey, Butch. How you doing?"

"Awful. My heads hurts like a motherfucker."

"Butch," Julie said. "You need to answer my question honestly. Have you had any grave injury in the past few months?"

"Oh, that. Well, I was shot twice in the head two months ago."

The two doctors stared at him.

"It wasn't that big of a deal, I mean, it just pissed me off."

"So let me get this straight," Julie said, perplexed. "You get shot in the head, twice, and you think you won't suffer an ill effects from it?"

"It gave me amnesia. I think that's an 'ill effect'."

"What exactly do you remember then?"

"I dunno, like my name. That's about it. Oh and that I like alcohol and hair." He shrugged.

"Retrograde amnesia," Arcade noted.

"Retro-who?"

Julie said, "Butch, where?" The Courier pointed at the side of his skull where the scar was.

Carefully Julie dug her fingers between his locks (which Butch surprisingly didn't even mind), fingering the somewhat still sensitive tissue. "Butch, it's amazing all you're dealing with now is just fainting spells." He grunted.

"So, can ya fix me now?"

"Butch, there's no cure for this. You're going to have to live with this."

That shouldn't have been so surprising. But Butch still flinched at her words. "That… fucking sucks."

"It should be somewhat manageable. Your companion can help you after all."

"Who do you travel with?" Arcade asked.

"Uh, this NCR sniper. First Recon. Pretty badass."

"Does he have any knowledge of medicine?"

"Nope."

Arcade looked at Julie with a silent question. She shrugged. "You can do whatever you want, Arcade." She left the two staring at each other.

The doctor said, "You and 1st Recon are going to get yourselves killed."

"Thanks for the prognosis, Doc."

"You're going to need someone with medical expertise, to take care of that condition of yours."

Butch raised an eyebrow. Then he grinned.

Maybe doctors weren't so bad after all.


End file.
